i didnt read the whole conversation but to answer the OP. i am totally disconnected from the normal lifestyle of the system. i dont go to school and i dont go to work. i live as a social bum here in finland and practice Dharma mostly pretty much isolated from any groups or society. allthough i am in close contact with my family. for me i rather practice dharma and receive the social benefits that finland offers, free housing and food and money. many people do this but use drugs instead, i used to do that but now for the last two or three years i have been in isolation, travelling, and getting intensely involved in Dharma. i dont want to waste my life studying bullshit for many years and then work in a bullshit job for many years. i am starting to learn wordpress since my friends are starting a website building business, and that is my long term plan of being able to work little from home and make enough money to be self supportive. if you dont want to be in the 9-5 job circle i suggest you try to make money from the internet, of course the skills take time to learn but its a good alternative.

from some of your post i sense frustration and little bit hatred of the situation and i think this judgemental attitude brings you the suffering, not what you actually do. i think you need to dissolve the boundaries between self and other so you can learn to feel just love and compassion no matter how deluded or whatever the person is like.

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

Thrasymachus wrote:He explained that more in his podcast interview, saying that the tribal people of India have a saying that as long as they can shake the earth and get rice, they will not work.

Isn't this what Chinese people see as the most demeaning and backbreaking work of all?

Gangadin Lohar wrote:As soon as you start outdoing your potential competitor in the labour market you turn into the enemy of worker from your own generation. I have to outcompete the pre-existing and potential competitors so I turn into enemy of older and coming generations. Above all, I have to turn into my own enemy to able to work for lesser wages more productively in lesser time _ _ Only if you turn into your enemy, enemy of your contemporaries, of earlier generations and of coming generations you will be able to survive. Anti-Being becomes the precondition of our Being.

As someone with somewhat different different political views, I suggest that since there is no Self, there is a kind of anti-being, but no being:

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche wrote:life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation

{From: Beyond Good and Evil - Part IX - Aphorism no. 259.} In other words, Life (in the generic sense rather than the spiritual or biological) is nothing but the destruction of other life and its reconstitution as one's own creative activity, which may indeed be superficially harmful to one's own health. It's also been pointed out here: http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_ ... 6523-5.php that

the appropriation, suppression, and exploitation is not of another’s person as much as it is of another’s creation, or more to the point, the lack thereof

{My emphasis} - Any advantage gained from other beings necessarily depends on them being less alive in some way.

It seems to me that *nothing* but Buddhadharma could conceivably point out a way beyond all this - to a point at which the world is beautiful because it's perceived at a level beyond the separation of self and other that makes the "War or All Against All" mathematically inevitable.

On the other hand, the human race has been ruled by petty emotions for too long - The strong fear and even pity the weak, whose resulting survival -which runs contrary to their inherited karma- has led inevitably to the destruction of the planet. Surely the only way life on earth can survive is if humanity -the entire mass of genuinely human beings- becomes extinct, leaving only sociopaths (i.e. beings with superficially-human minds who are in fact unburdened by non-reptilian emotions) along with suitable slaves/'beasts of burden' who'd be kept alive so as to keep the nuclear facilities and useful technologies running, and so as to remind the sociopaths how ungainly the race they'd have left behind could be in many instances. {It's clear, of course, that the Financial Crash of 2008 has made all of this more than likely.}

Last edited by undefineable on Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:31 pm, edited 3 times in total.

"Removing the barrier between this and that is the only solution" {Chogyam Trungpa - "The Lion's Roar"}

@Qing Tan:I would have more confidence if there actually people living without money or little of it somewhere I was comfortable moving to. Like I said my grandparents were to a large degree self sufficient, but they passed little of those skills onto my mother, and none onto me. I know there are many places where people actually do live with little money and survive, but it would be a huge cultural barrier and language barrier and I would always be an outsider. I could use my savings to try to learn permaculture, but there is no guarantee I actually would learn enough before my savings ran out.

@Tara:I strongly suspect the promotion won't make me happy. Back to what I said about no one really liking their jobs despite the minority of strongly self-deluded folks considering otherwise, spending your life is spending your life as, Gangadin Lohar, put it. A new job promotion is just a minor micro-improvement and not a substantiative leap into "living life"(which is impossible living in a hyper capitalist country where every activity, social relation and almost every substance is monetized).

@KonchokZoepa:I don't think that is essentially different: living on state welfare. Sure you are not working, which is always a plus, but you are just spending money all the same and constantly surrounded by the relations of making money and spending it. I have lived for alot of years, unemployed, loafing off my mom and generally refusing to go outside for the most part as I didn't want to shop or work, in general, and that is all there was out there. It is hard to have self esteem doing that, doing nothing. Tolstoy has an interesting essay about his voluntary decision to abandon his nobleman's way of life and live as a peasant working the land. He observed that the rich waste so much energy in surrogate activities like hobbies, the arts, the sciences but are still little satisfied because they don't do constructive work related to the actual maintenance of their own life. This is from one of contemporaries in the United States, who observed this about life under the more nascent capitalism of his period and locale:

Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.

...

I don't see how living off state benefits or doing a website is different, you are still living off and for money, either way. It doesn't feel good living off another's brass. I think people have a need to be connected with their own survival and that is why everyone I meet is so neurotic and they can only hide it by being unfamiliar, a stranger, the facade of normalcy only can be upheld from afar -- in close, it just crumbles. People who work for a living for money, unconnected to their actual life needs, become addicts of tv, drugs, food, shopping. I doubt if they actually physically toiled to fetch their own water, gather their own food, they would have the need for those neuroses that need continual satisfaction to try to hole up an internal void.

I would have more confidence if there actually people living without money or little of it somewhere I was comfortable moving to. Like I said my grandparents were to a large degree self sufficient, but they passed little of those skills onto my mother, and none onto me. I know there are many places where people actually do live with little money and survive, but it would be a huge cultural barrier and language barrier and I would always be an outsider. I could use my savings to try to learn permaculture, but there is no guarantee I actually would learn enough before my savings ran out.

Putting aside the difficulties we are having in 'the other thread', I do understand where you are coming from here, but the quoted statement is, in my humble opinion, nothing more than an excuse. I know it is terribly hard when you cannot accurately or even partially predict the outcome of a course of action. However, sometimes you have to make a leap of faith, as it were, burn your bridges, throw caution to the winds - to mix a few metaphors. Just because your grandparents did not pass on their skills does not mean you cannot learn them for yourself. There always has to be a pioneer. Why should it not be you?

Cultural barrier? Language barrier? Always be an outsider? These are all things that can be overcome. I emigrated half way around the world to a country I had never been to, and without work. Was it scary and uncertain? You bet, but it was also exhilarating and educational. Before I met my current partner I was about to head off to live, work and learn in China - taking nothing but a backpack and a laptop. Cultural and language barriers? Yep, there they were, in spades. Was it a daunting prospect? Absolutely! Yet I believe there are some of us who need to challenge ourselves. I was like you many years ago, reluctant to test the water, worried that it would all go wrong. And so I did nothing for a very long time. When I did act it was a revelation and I realised that I had wasted a lot of time. Now, when I am in unfamiliar waters and things go horribly wrong (from the perspective of onlookers) it all just seems like life in all its richness. Cultivating a mind that can absorb the experience has made a world of difference.

I strongly urge you to gird your loins, get out there and dive into life on your terms. Take every knock back as a spur to reach for new horizons. Revel in it. Life is to be lived. Live it. Please.

“Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.”

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

thrasymachus i think your reply is quite accurate but i was just thinking you meant the normal nine to five job circle. but i understand what you said in your last message in actually is quite true.

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

quan tian, Can you be truthfully fearless unless enlightened? Not just putting on a brave face, not just jumping in and lets see what happens. Fearless without a shred of angst!

Thrasymacus, Anyone who works for a living is working class, no matter how large the salary you're still at the beck and call of some 'superior' In the work force you may well ask 'who needs me?' So if someone needs me the other must be needy. With this global workforce, flexible hours, no one is much needed. The corporation can go to a poor country and garner the local workforce at great profit to the shareholders. No one is indispensable in this fragile work arrangement.In Australia land is cheap, especially at the fringes of small inland towns. You can get a cow, a couple of sheep, goats , a few chooks. Grow your own vegetables and become self sufficient; of course its hard work. As you approach the large cities and coastal towns.... property doubles and triples in price as most want to live near the sea.

quan tian, Can you be truthfully fearless unless enlightened? Not just putting on a brave face, not just jumping in and lets see what happens. Fearless without a shred of angst!

Please, it's Qing Tian.

I'm neither fearless nor enlightened... not by a long way. Jumping in and seeing what happens is often how it all starts. Beyond that it is all about balancing on a shifting surface. I don't fight the fear, I work with it, try to understand it, become it. Often it turns out to be illusory anyway.

Regarding Thrasymachus' problem: Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be lived.

Unless he wants to write a book with a title like: The World From My Armchair.

“Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.”

Thrasymachus, the disgust you feel towards the pettiness and dysfunction of the world should not be restricted to the society you're familiar with. When I think about the past, all different societies, the birth and death of worldly people, I feel a strong urge to vomit. People spend their lives doing petty things, burning with mental afflictions, and dying miserably with mistaken views of themselves and true existence.

You can exploit the situation you are in. While other people spend free time watching tv. You can study dharma and practice. And if your work is successful you can die a free man and avoid rebirth in this velvet lined slaughterhouse.

If there is a radical inconsistency between your statements and the position you claim to hold,you are a sock puppet.Make as many accounts as you want; people can identify your deception with this test.

Dear Qing Tian, Yes its a universal problem for many home tourists view ' the world from my armchair' In the case of Thrasymachus he was trying to decide whether to hang in there, keep his job, possibly get a promotion further down the line or turn his back, put on gumboots and go back to his mothers village and till the soil? Of course village life may be nothing more then sentimental imaginings. I don't know if it helps to be bitter or radical but when people speak and act out of inner need, then perhaps real solutions can be found.

True enough, but I think that speaking from an inner need is not sufficient. There must be an associated and appropriate action. I do feel that I understand the frustrations that Thrasymachus conveys on here - even though we have disagreed quite vigorously on a number of issues - and yet simply highlighting these frustrations is unlikely to effect much by way of change. It's a hard road to travel. Worth it though.

As Thrasymachus is no doubt familiar with Thoreau's Walden: Or, Life in the Woods.

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

“Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.”

I like QT's attitude and find it inspirational, but shee-yit, I think if I followed his advice, I might just end up homeless. Homelessness seems so far away until one day you find yourself looking for a job and absolutely nobody will hire you. That happened to me over a decade ago and it was a complete shock. I couldn't get anything in my field and I couldn't get even get random basic labor jobs because people hiring just assumed I would get a new job in my field soon enough and leave them in the lurch. I almost had a nervous breakdown and was seriously thinking about suicide on a daily basis. It's pretty hard to ace an interview when you've had so many doors shut in your face already and you've got to pay the rent and several overdue bills with nothing in the bank, no family to support you or network of friends to hook you up with something. That experience caused me to wake up to the reality of those "bums" on the street I always found very irritating before. You don't have to be lazy and careless to wind up on the street in America. It's quite frightening, actually... it has definitely held me back from taking risks ever since.

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

padma norbu, I hear you! Just listening to a program about Detroit and end stage capitalism. Apparently ordinary peoples pension funds were raided to pay off corporate debt!Unfortunately Detroit is a basket case but so is America and the last straw of this latest debacle instigated by the tea party has bought the USA to its knees.Yes you can go out on a limb but you have to be detached enough, calm enough to 'cop the consequences' then you'll see what stuff you're really made of!